A Time to Mourn

I know that some people won't understand why I'm writing this post, but I feel pretty strongly that it is something I should do. I will say that I want to tell it the way it happened, so I apologize for anything that sounds unpleasant.

This last Friday, Johnny and I were 6 1/2 weeks pregnant. At the end of the school day, I noticed that I was spotting. The internet research I did during my seventh period study hall seemed to roll its eyes at spotting, saying that 30% of pregnant women spot, and it's usually no big deal. After talking to my friend Laura, though, I decided to call my doctor once the bell rang for the end of school. The nurse who answered said that there were no more appointments available that day and that I should go to the emergency room if it continued. It did, so I went.

I stayed in the emergency room from 3:30 until 10 on Friday night, watching BET music videos for hours because the remote control didn't work. After blood work, ultrasounds, and poor Johnny running around trying to find us food, the OB-GYN came down to talk to us. She told us that the ultrasound was inconclusive and that there were three options: 1. The baby is still too small to be seen at 6 weeks, and the spotting is just unrelated. 2. My body is preparing to miscarry and the spotting is a sign of that. 3. The pregnancy is actually an ectopic pregnancy and has started to grow outside of my uterus, being potentially extremely harmful. The doctor then said I should go home and come back in a few days to have my blood checked again to make sure that everything was going ok.

Saturday came around, and I noted that I was still having spotting and my back had started to ache a lot more than it had the last six weeks. Johnny and I went to our scheduled dinner and game night with aforementioned Laura and husband Fred. While playing some game that I don't remember the name of, I noticed that my spotting had significantly increased. I told Johnny that I thought we needed to go to the emergency room, so Fred and Laura prayed for us, and we quickly walked to our house. Even just on the sixty second walk home, I could feel the symptoms increasing greatly, and I knew something was wrong.

By the time we got to the hospital and were quickly admitted, I was deeply worried and almost hysterical. They put me on morphine for the pain in my back, and it did almost nothing. A new OB-GYN came in and did an exam and quietly told me that I had miscarried. After waiting around for a few more hours, we were discharged around 2 in the morning and were met by a fitting soft rain as we left the hospital.

Johnny and I deeply loved the baby and had been trying for awhile to get pregnant. I want to openly mourn the loss of this life no matter how small and short it might have been. We know that we will have children in our life in the future, but this individual life was important to us, and we simply want people to know about it. Thank you to all of you who have prayed for us over these last few difficult days; we know that baby Hutson would have appreciated it too.

I was able to share the news with the majority of my students, and it has opened an interesting line of communication about the importance of life and how thankful so many of them are that their parents chose to give them life. God has been very faithful to us throughout the entire experience, and I am thankful for the opportunity to already connect with other women who have been through similar situations. We take comfort in knowing that God loves baby Hutson very much, even more than we do.

"For you created my inmost being;

you knit me together in my mother's womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well."

Psalm 139:13-14